September 14, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 158 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session
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CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET JUSTIFICATION TRANSPARENCY ACT OF 2020; Congressional Record Vol. 166, No. 158
(House of Representatives - September 14, 2020)
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[Pages H4348-H4350] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET JUSTIFICATION TRANSPARENCY ACT OF 2020 Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4894) to amend the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, to require the budget justifications and appropriation requests of agencies be made publicly available, as amended. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The text of the bill is as follows: H.R. 4894 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the ``Congressional Budget Justification Transparency Act of 2020''. SEC. 2. PUBLIC AVAILABILITY OF BUDGET JUSTIFICATIONS AND APPROPRIATION REQUESTS. (a) In General.--Section 3 of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (Public Law 109- 282; 31 U.S.C. 6101 note) is amended to read as follows: ``SEC. 3. FULL DISCLOSURE OF FEDERAL FUNDS. ``(a) In General.--Not less frequently than monthly when practicable, and in any event not less frequently than quarterly, the Secretary (in consultation with the Director and, with respect to information described in subsection (b)(2), the head of the applicable agency) shall ensure that updated information with respect to the information described in subsection (b) is posted on the website established under section 2. ``(b) Information To Be Posted.-- ``(1) Funds.--For any funds made available to or expended by a Federal agency or component of a Federal agency, the information to be posted shall include-- ``(A) for each appropriations account, including an expired or unexpired appropriations account, the amount-- ``(i) of budget authority appropriated; ``(ii) that is obligated; ``(iii) of unobligated balances; and ``(iv) of any other budgetary resources; ``(B) from which accounts and in what amount-- ``(i) appropriations are obligated for each program activity; and ``(ii) outlays are made for each program activity; ``(C) from which accounts and in what amount-- ``(i) appropriations are obligated for each object class; and ``(ii) outlays are made for each object class; and ``(D) for each program activity, the amount-- ``(i) obligated for each object class; and ``(ii) of outlays made for each object class. ``(2) Budget justifications.-- ``(A) Definition.--In this paragraph, the term `budget justification materials' means the annual budget justification materials of an agency that are submitted, in conjunction with the budget of the United States Government submitted under section 1105(a) of title 31, United States Code, but does not include budget justification materials that are classified. ``(B) Information.--The information to be posted shall include any budget justification materials-- ``(i) for the second fiscal year beginning after the date of enactment of this paragraph, and each fiscal year thereafter; and ``(ii) to the extent practicable, that were released for any fiscal year before the date of enactment of this paragraph. [[Page H4349]] ``(C) Format.--Budget justification materials shall be posted under subparagraph (B)-- ``(i) as an open Government data asset (as defined under section 3502 of title 44, United States Code); ``(ii) in a manner that enables users to download individual reports, download all reports in bulk, and download in bulk the results of a search, to the extent practicable; and ``(iii) in a structured data format, to the extent practicable. ``(D) Deadline.--The budget justification materials required to be posted under subparagraph (B)(i) shall be posted not later than 2 weeks after the date on which the budget justification materials are first submitted to Congress. ``(E) Rule of construction.--Nothing in this paragraph shall be construed to authorize an agency to destroy any budget justification materials relating to a fiscal year before the fiscal year described in subparagraph (B)(i).''. (b) Information Regarding Agency Budget Justifications.-- Section 1105 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: ``(i)(1) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall make publicly available on a website, and continuously update, a tabular list for each fiscal year of each agency that submits budget justification materials, which shall include-- ``(A) the name of the agency; ``(B) a unique identifier that identifies the agency; ``(C) to the extent practicable, the date on which the budget justification materials of the agency are first submitted to Congress; ``(D) the date on which the budget justification materials of the agency are posted online under section 3 of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006; ``(E) the uniform resource locator where the budget justification materials are published on the website of the agency; and ``(F) a single data set that contains the information described in subparagraphs (A) through (E) with respect to the agency for all fiscal years for which budget justifications of the agency are made available under section 3 of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 in a structured data format. ``(2)(A) Each agency that submits budget justification materials shall make the materials available on the website of the agency, in accordance with the policies established by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under subparagraph (B). ``(B) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, shall establish policies for agencies relating to making available materials under subparagraph (A), which shall include guidelines for making budget justification materials available in a format aligned with the requirements of section 3(b)(2)(C) of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 and using a uniform resource locator that is in a consistent format across agencies and is descriptive, memorable, and pronounceable, such as the format of `agencyname.gov/budget. ``(C) If the Director of the Office of Management and Budget maintains a public website that contains the budget of the United States Government submitted under subsection (a) and any related materials, such website shall also contain a link to the tabular list required under paragraph (1). ``(3) In this subsection, the term `budget justification materials' has the meaning given that term in section 3 of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006.''. SEC. 3. DETERMINATION OF BUDGETARY EFFECTS. The budgetary effects of this Act, for the purpose of complying with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, shall be determined by reference to the latest statement titled ``Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation'' for this Act, submitted for printing in the Congressional Record by the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, provided that such statement has been submitted prior to the vote on passage. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Keller) each will control 20 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from New York. General Leave Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the measure before us. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from New York? There was no objection. Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The bill before us, the Congressional Budget Justification Transparency Act, is a commonsense, good government measure every Member should support. It would require the congressional budget justification documents that agencies prepare for congressional committees to be posted online in a centralized, searchable database. This would make these detailed plain-language explanations of how agencies plan to spend taxpayer dollars more accessible to the public. I thank Representatives Mike Quigley and Doug Collins for their work on this bill. Representative Quigley, in particular, has a long history as a strong advocate of transparency in the operations of the Federal Government. Representative Quigley is the founder and chair of the bipartisan Congressional Transparency Caucus, which shines a light on the importance of government transparency and accountability. This legacy of championing good government stems from his time serving as Cook County Commissioner where government reform was one of his major legislative priorities. H.R. 4894 builds on the work of the committee to improve government transparency by allowing the public to more easily learn how Federal agencies spend their taxpayer dollars. Mr. Speaker, I support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. KELLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of H.R. 4894, the Congressional Budget Justification Transparency Act. The Congressional Budget Justification Transparency Act is a long overdue reform to ensure that the Congress and the public can understand the full scope of the Federal budget. This bipartisan bill will make it possible for the public and every Member of Congress to readily find and compare the annual budget justification and supporting materials that each agency prepares and sends to Congress. Taxpayers should know how agencies plan to spend their hard-earned money. Last year, the Federal Government spent more than $4.4 trillion. We have transparency tools like USAspending.gov to track Federal spending after Congress appropriates taxpayer dollars. However, the annual Federal agency budget justifications provide detailed and plain-language explanations of how agencies plan to spend congressionally appropriated funds. In other words, an agency Congressional Budget Justification provides the necessary details in context to actually understand how agency missions connect to eventual Federal spending. Currently, agencies send these plans directly to congressional appropriators. However, if the rest of us wish to review these valuable government budget materials, we are left to manually search through hundreds of individual agency websites. H.R. 4894 solves this problem by requiring the budget justifications of every agency be publicly available at a central, single website. The bill would require the Office of Management and Budget to provide a comprehensive list of each agency's budget justification with a stable link to where the documents are published on agency websites. This way Congress and the public can know that they are looking at the complete picture of the budget request materials. Each agency would also be required to publish their materials at a consistently named web address to further simplify the public's discovery of these budget documents. The bill would also require the U.S. Treasury to centrally publish all materials themselves on USAspending.gov as open data. USAspending is a current one-stop shop for the public to find information on how the government is using their tax dollars. It tracks all Federal spending activity, as required by the 2014 DATA Act, which is an example of the strong bipartisan work the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and Congress has accomplished in the past. Adding congressional budget justifications to USAspending.gov for future generations will provide greater context to Federal spending information. Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support this bipartisan bill, and I reserve the balance of my time. [[Page H4350]] Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Pennsylvania has no further speakers, I am prepared to close. I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. KELLER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss without mentioning another interesting benefit of the Congressional Budget Justification Transparency Act. Thanks to another law that the House Oversight and Reform Committee has previously produced in the last Congress, the 2018 Good Accounting Obligation in Government Act, congressional budget justifications also list unimplemented inspector general audit and GAO report recommendations. Therefore, H.R. 4894 will also centralize documents containing valuable IG and GAO recommendations for the public and Congress to easily find. This will empower better oversight over a sprawling and complicated Federal Government. I hope we can continue to find ways to continue building on such good government reforms in a bipartisan fashion. Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues to support this commonsense legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time. Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I likewise, urge passage of H.R. 4894, as amended, and I yield back the balance of my time. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney) that the House suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 4894, as amended. The question was taken. The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds being in the affirmative, the ayes have it. Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to section 3 of House Resolution 965, the yeas and nays are ordered. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings on this motion will be postponed. ____________________
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